It was time to say bye to San Isidro and go out on a long drive to Tandapaya. It was a 4-5 hour long drive, had to drive all the way to Quito and from there to Tandayapa. We had few stop overs in between where we have seen few Llamas as well. (Domesticated ones) and also had lunch in Quito. By the time we reached Bella Vista it was dark and it was raining. Ofcourse it is cloud forest and expected to be raining. On the way from Quito to Bella Vista we also saw black vultures, but in interest of time we chose not to stop and click as it was raining, road was narrow and steep. After reaching Bella Vista i have seen the dream bird which i had in mind before coming to Ecuador, i had the image clicked by Nate of these birds printed in my mind. The booted racket tails. Could not resist the temptation even though it was almost dark grabbed the 5D M3 and 70-200 and clicked few images, though which i deleted all of them later. Bella Vista rooms were cool, typical forest reserve rooms. That night we have just finished our dinner and were waiting for the desert and one of the staff from Bella Vista comes running and tells us they have seen a Kinkajou. Fortunately my camera was around with flash mounted, grabbed it and ran to the deck to see the wonderful species. Got some images and good records.

It was time to say bye to San Isidro and go out on a long drive to Tandapaya. It was a 4-5 hour long drive, had to drive all the way to Quito and from there to Tandayapa. We had few stop overs in between where we have seen few Llamas as well. (Domesticated ones) and also had lunch in Quito. By the time we reached Bella Vista it was dark and it was raining. Ofcourse it is cloud forest and expected to be raining. On the way from Quito to Bella Vista we also saw black vultures, but in interest of time we chose not to stop and click as it was raining, road was narrow and steep. After reaching Bella Vista i have seen the dream bird which i had in mind before coming to Ecuador, i had the image clicked by Nate of these birds printed in my mind. The booted racket tails. Could not resist the temptation even though it was almost dark grabbed the 5D M3 and 70-200 and clicked few images, though which i deleted all of them later. Bella Vista rooms were cool, typical forest reserve rooms. That night we have just finished our dinner and were waiting for the desert and one of the staff from Bella Vista comes running and tells us they have seen a Kinkajou. Fortunately my camera was around with flash mounted, grabbed it and ran to the deck to see the wonderful species. Got some images and good records.

Bella Vista doest allow Multi flash set up, so we had to click the humming birds mostly when they perch close to the feeders or flying towards feeders. Getting flight images in that low light of these birds is out of question. So that morning clicked few humming birds and Squirrels. Then came the most colourful one, the masked trogon male a resident bird there in the lodge and have seen few times during the day. Followed by few images of wood creepers and fly catchers. We got an invite again from the staff saying there is a Tyra (mammal). Due to bad light and wrong gear in hand i just got few record shots.During the day we had few more visitors, have seen a Nun bird and got some record shots. Nate decided we should be driving to a different lodge for a day trip to click humming birds. So we hopped on to the bus and as we started we got to know that there was a landslide and had to take a longer route, we reached Alambi just before lunch. Alambi had 10 humming bird feeders and two fruit feeders. While the whole team was setting up their stuff, Me, Joe and Mac Kay took a walk to the river to find a dipper. We did not find a dipper but we found Turkey Vultures flying around and got some shots. We clicked Red Headed Barbets, Woodpeckers, Tanagers apart from various species of humming birds. First time i have seen Hermits here. We could not do multi flash set up but got some decent portraits of of Booted Racket Tails, Sparkling Violetears etc., Food and hospitality at Alambi was excellent. By afternoon around 3 PM we wrapped up everything and left to Bella Vista as we had to take the longer route back as the landslide issue was not fixed yet.

As i opened the room in the morning i saw there was lot of excitement around and Mackay was shooting some birds, i casually walked down to check what he was clicking and he got a Plate billed Toucon image. By the i got my gear she was gone. Morning started off with Turquoise Jays and then comes by dream bird Toucan Barbet. As it was very misty with poor visibility just managed to get few record shots. After some birding had been for breakfast, while we were walking back from breakfast Nestor came running and shouted Toucans. We took the heavy gear and ran to the road, there were two Plate Billed Toucans but very far high on the tree and still the weather was bad. We saw one of them flying towards up the hill, i walked back to get by extender, Mackay, Rithesh and Joe walked up the hill looking for the Toucan. I had my extender connected and followed them, as i got closer they were clicking the Toucan from a close distance, by the time i got there, she flew to other side of the road, fortunately for me she was on the right perch in open and gave some good images.After clicking Toucan Nate suggested we should go on a drive looking for birds along the road, We did not have much luck there. We returned for lunch and when we were getting back to the rooms, Joe saw a snaked and it was very close from where we were and got some quick shots. We packed things soon and it was time for us to leave Bella Vista and go to Sacha Tamia lodge. I have been hearing about this lodge from day 1 and had high expectations. And this was the last bird lodge on our itinerary for tour 1. We reached there by late afternoon and Nate went looking for some good spots for Multi flash set up. Myself and Rithesh were given huge Suite room on 2nd floor. As i walked in and opened the windows there were lots of birds perching close to the window. I happily kept clicking the birds from there. We had some multi flash activity before wrapped up the day. But i did not get my dream shots of booted racket tails on multi flash. Day ended by clicking the Black and White Owl.